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Golf ‘stupid rules’ vex pros and duffers alike

From fans calling in infractions to unsigned scorecards, many penalties defy logic

In 1987, Craig Stadler was penalized one stroke because he put a towel on muddy ground to hit a ball that had landed under a tree.

Photograph by: Jeff Gross
, Getty Images

Let’s see. Tiger Woods can have an army of fans move a huge boulder that was defined to be a loose 2,000-pound impediment out of his path with no penalty. But, last year, when Carl Pettersson tickled a leaf on his backswing while hitting out of a lateral hazard he was penalized two shots for breaking Rule 13-4c: moving a loose impediment in a hazard.

“Golf has a lot of stupid rules,” said Pettersson.

Boy does it ever.

Remember Craig Stadler? Back in 1987, Stadler put a towel on the muddy ground so he could kneel on it and not stain his pants while trying to hit a ball that landed under a tree.

“I didn’t want to finish the round looking like a gardener,” Stadler said at the time.

Oops. One-shot penalty.

Worse, Stadler was disqualified from that tournament — the San Diego Open at Torrey Pines — when he signed an incorrect scorecard by not taking into account the penalty.

More bizarre is that it was a television viewer who phoned in — and just who do these people call anyway? — to complain about the rule breach of not being able to “build a stance.”

“Ridiculous,” Taylor Scinski, head professional at The Quarry, said when asked about viewers being able to call in infractions.

“Golf is the only sport where a viewer can call in and get a player to be penalized,” said Kevin Hogan, head pro at Victoria. “Can you imagine if they allowed that in hockey?”

It was also a TV viewer who got Dustin Johnson a penalty in the 2010 PGA Championship for grounding his club in a bunker even though the bunker in question looked nothing like a bunker with grass growing out of it and full of footprints from where spectators had stood and walked through.

Lots of golfers have been disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard or failing to sign one at all. But the most famous DQ came in the 1968 Masters when Roberto De Vicenzo made a birdie three, but his playing partner, Tommy Aaron, inadvertently entered a four instead. Not paying attention, De Vicenzo signed the card and instead of getting into a playoff with Bob Goalby, De Vicenzo had to take the higher score.

“What a stupid I am,” De Vicenzo famously declared.

But was De Vicenzo stupid? Or is it golf’s rules which Ian Poulter recently tweeted are “complete bollocks … stuck back in 1932.”

“The signing of scorecards is silly,” said Bob Weeks, editorial director of Scoregolf Magazine and a golf analyst for TSN.

“At every PGA Tour event there is a volunteer that goes around and counts every shot played by every player. For most groups, there are people watching every shot and yet still they are required to sign a scorecard.”

Weeks also doesn’t like the stroke and distance rule when you hit a ball out of bounds.

“Make all out of bounds — like lateral hazards — point of entry; no nearer to the hole,” Rumpel said. “You are still being penalized, but it will help speed up play so you don’t have to keep hitting from the same spot over and over until you get one in play.

“The rules have become an encyclopedia that slows down play and causes arguments,” Rumpel said of the 191-page rule book.

If you hit a shot and it comes back and hits you it’s a two-shot penalty. But if your shot hits an opponent that’s fine.

“Dumb,” said Royal Mayfair golf pro Mike Belbin. “It’s not like that helps you very often.”

There are lots of other rules that drive players crazy. One in particular that irks a lot of golf professionals is if your ball comes to rest in a divot you have to play it as it lies. You could have hit a perfect drive down the middle of the fairway, but if it landed in a divot that’s where you play it — even if it sits on top of a dried out divot.

“It should be considered ground under repair,” said Murray McCourt, general manager of The Ranch Golf & Country Club. “You shouldn’t be punished for a hitting a good shot.”

McCourt also finds the fact that if your ball lands in a foot print in a bunker you have to play it where it lies.

“You should be able to rake the trap and place your ball. It makes no sense that you should be punished because someone in front of you was disrespectful and didn’t rake the trap,” said McCourt.

Another suspect rule — which Alberta Golf rules official Ian Baker pointed out — is when a ball is in casual water in the bunker.

“The player can take free relief in the bunker, but must drop the ball maybe getting a plugged lie,” Baker said.

Gary Ward, a former PGA Tour Canada player, agrees. “I think it’s a goofy rule that could be easily fixed if you were allowed to place the ball in the bunker. You would still have a difficult shot to play, but at least you would have a chance to pull off the shot you would have originally had if there had not been casual water,” said Ward. “It’s particularly unfair when it’s a fairway bunker because you’ve got a longer shot — maybe 200 yards — and, from the plugged lie, you are probably only going to be able to advance it 20 yards. You may as well take the one-shot penalty and just drop it outside the bunker.”

The list of goofy rules goes on and on.

Just ask Surrey’s Phil Jonas, who plays on the European Senior’s Tour and was voted as last year’s B.C. teacher of the year.

“One time I was going down to replace my ball on the green and I accidentally dropped the ball onto my coin, the coin bounced up. One-stroke penalty,” said Jonas.

But Jonas, who runs the Phillip Jonas Golf Academy at Hazelmere, came up with an even sillier rule: “If you toss your ball to your caddy and he misses it and the ball goes in the water, unless you find it, it’s a lost ball.”

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